Grumman XF5F Skyrocket
. In a postscript to that issue's story, Blackhawk breaks the Fourth Wall and directly addresses the readers, to display blueprints of the next issue's warplanes. He mentions "Vladim", who is Blackhawk Squadron's resident aircraft designer, but who never actually appears. * Starting in , and until , the standard-model XF5Fs were replaced, with a single-rudder variant. Also during that time, the propeller engines were sometimes radial, and sometimes in-line engines. Two of these aircraft were shot down in . * Other modifications and experiments continued throughout the Second World War, including: ** As seen in and , and several other times, the Blackhawk Skyrockets can be fitted with pontoon landing gear. ** As seen in , only, one of the Blackhawk Skyrockets was fitted with a tailgun turret. ** Starting in , at least one of the Blackhawk Skyrockets was fitted with heavy antiship automatic cannons. These were not seen again after . * During World War II, at least twelve of these warplanes were lost to enemy action, , , , , , , , , , and three in (plus two of the single-rudder version described above), for a wartime total of 14. * After the war these losses continued. ** In 1947, one more Skyrocket was destroyed in a crash, another was abandoned and destroyed along with a villain's lair, and a third was smacked apart by a giant condor's wing. ** In 1948, a villain in a jet fighter, armed with a Neutron Ray, was easily able to shoot down one Grumman, even flown by Blackhawk himself. Four more Skyrockets were abandoned aboard that villain's aircraft carrier, which was then sunk. Two more XF5Fs were lost, in two separate incidents, to antiaircraft cannonfire.both in One Skyrocket hit an invisible airborne obstacle, two others were abandoned in mid-air, 4th story & and one was demolished in a collision attack. Overall, a total of 28 of these fighter-bombers were lost during the 1941 to 1948 period. * In 1947, the Blackhawks began encountering enemies who were equipped with jet fighters, , and some of these encounters did not go well. In 1948 one villain had a jet fighter available, but was unable to get it airborne in time to fight the Blackhawks. 2nd story Another enemy managed to get a squadron of curvy-winged jets into combat against the team, and took down one Grumman, although it took a suicidal crash to do so. In late 1948 the Grummans fought one last squadron of jet fighters, and did indeed defeat them, but by this time it was clear that the 1941-model XF5F Skyrockets were obsolete. * In early 1949, the Blackhawk Squadron traded off their Grumman Skyrockets for some North American F-86 Sabre jets, as first seen in (Jan 1949), which went on sale before (Feb 1949). | Trivia = * This is never mentioned but has to be true: the Blackhawk Skyrockets contain powerful amplifiers and loudspeakers. This is apparent because the oppressors and their victims alike are able to hear the hearty theme song of the Blackhawks as they approach the scene of action. page 12 panel 5 | Links = * }} nl:Skyrocket